By: Muhammad Javad Sahebi
After hundreds of years of stagnation and neglect, the West through the occurrences of the Renaissance and ascent to the industrial revolution rose to the establishment of modern civilization. In retaliation to its past frustrations and the widely hidden complexes against the Muslims and in particular because of the West’s needs for raw materials to supply their consumer market it set out to dominate the Islamic civilization through a new movement in the modern era. Its greed and rapacity was ever increasing while on the other hand decline in the Islamic world owing to detachment from the holy Quran’s teaching, misunderstanding of the teachings of the religion of Islam, infiltration of the superstitions and illusory thoughts, despotic governments, colonial aggressions and interferences, loss of national and religious identities and self-segregation from the modern European civilization and perhaps much more dangerous of all, issues causing chasm and discord among the Muslim Ummah led to deliberations by Muslim reformists to identity a new approach to cure the pains of the Ummah of Muhammad (S.A.W.).
The instigator of the proposal for the creation of pan-Islamism in the modern era, after traveling to the great Islamic countries and close observation of the desperate situation faced by Muslims, initiated a reform program. However every step toward his reform program in Muslim societies encountered obstructions and interference by foreigners. Hence the struggle against European colonialism became his main goal and unification of all Muslim elements became a necessity and Islamic unity became the main focus of his duties within the Egyptian party of Hezb Al Vatani.
Before the introduction of Islamic convergence as a political requirement for preserving the pillars of Islam, Seyyed Jamal Aldin Asad Abadi made efforts to introduce the principle as a religious duty and one of the important teachings of the holy Quran.
He addressed the audience in one of the sessions of the Hezb Al vatani party saying: “may the greatest glorification of God be with you, the Almighty and the strongest proof of his eternal presence, the holy Quran as it is the luminous light of God Almighty; a light by which man rose from darkness of temptations, it is certainly the light of salvation.”
“Whenever God Almighty decides to punish a tribe for their action they will dwindle and their struggles will increase.” This saying of the holy prophet (S.A.W.) also explains that there are three things that the heart of all Muslims do not abuse: the purification of action for God almighty, advice and well wishing for Muslims leaders in their relations with their communities; the blood of Muslims are equal to one another without considerations for race and class… and it is destiny that the eldest takes care of the youngest. Muslims fight against the enemies of the religion of Islam with complete unanimity.

The factors and impediments facing Islamic unity
After taking a trip to Europe and getting closely acquainted with the culture and civilization of the West and becoming aware of the colonialists’ plots, Seyyed began his relentless struggle in the heart of Europe and spared no effort in this regard. His utmost anxiety at that time was the proximity between the different sects in the religion of Islam; he continued to warn Muslims against chasm and discord. Seyyed Jamal Aldin Asad Abadi’s boundless duty and love towards the sacred goal of Islamic unity is manifested in the title chosen by him for the magazine “Urwat-al-vosgha” and its essays.
Seyyed attributed the main reason for discord and chasm among the Islamic Ummah as the governance of stray and illegitimate rulers and wrote:
“If there were not any rogue rulers whose greed for hegemony over Eastern Muslims has been joined by the West, the entire world would speak with the voice of unity.” This point is the sheer fact that the tyrannical and corrupt governments, in order to keep their power resort to creating discord and chasm among other nations’ Ummahs. Those who sing the songs of disunity among the people are related to the existing corruption in government systems while on the other hand as a precondition for their survival they display their horrific prowess. Sometime in order to fight rival powers and preserve their own power they sew discord and implement chasms between two nations as an instrument to set the masses against each other.On the basis of Seyyed’s points of view there are certain influential factors with regards to Islamic unity:
1. Commonsense against the threat.
2. Identification of means of defense
3. Consensus while taking action.
Because of attaining the above mentioned goals (factors), Seyed strived to stir religious and national notions within the people, thus he addressed the faithful Muslims and enumerated to them the existence of the possibilities and potentials of the Islamic Ummah. He said that by relying on their potentials Muslims can remain united against the relentless onslaught by their enemies like an unbreakable fortress:On the basis of his points of view such potentials are listed as:
1. Coherence of the Islamic lands from “Adarnch” to the Peshawar.
2. The unitary message of the holy Quran and the common beliefs of the Muslims.
3. The quantitative and qualitative development of the Muslim community.
Seyyed notes that Muslims with so much potential are not capable of resisting the torrential invasions of their foes that have surrounded them in all directions and expresses surprise while attempting to severely reprimand them. He numerates unity as the secret of any nation’s victory and says that the historic experience shows the rise and fall of races, tribes and nations has been inherent in their pledges of unity or disunity to God’s divinity. What each of the nations share is equality acquired from unity and proximity to God. Almighty will not punish any tribe unless they are affected by discord and chasm.
In the list of duties in the creation of Islamic unity, Seyyed points out to religious elevations and prophetic massages and says that: “In the saying of the religious law giver (Sharia) it has been decreed that one believer opposite another has a certain prestige which is similar to the integral weight bearing qualities in buildings as some buildings’ construction integrity is designed to serve to uphold another’s, and so on and so forth in a chain reaction adding up to preservation of a building complex through inter reliance. Issues in the points of views between the believers act as limbs in the body, when one limb suffers from pain the other one will also be affected.
And the religious law giver says: “don’t be separated, don’t turn away from one another, and don’t envy one another.”
He warns the individual to steer the community away from loss and perdition and offers an example: that the concerned individual is like a lone sheep that will be hunted by the wolves. Such problems occur, that is why God orders his servants to be united and hold the divine cord fast and firm and forbids them from discord and deceit.
When after a long period of enmity two sides become brothers, blessed by brotherhood, they become indebted to God.
The holy Quran says that in reality the believers are brothers and the people exposed to its holy verses are requested to settle their disagreements and to make peace among themselves except in the case of persons who are recalcitrant, the holy Quran not only has emphasized peace but it has ordered it .The law giver of religion notes issues of togetherness; one of them is as follows:
If I were invited to the treaty of the gallants (fozool) that on basis of it Hashern, Zoherh and Tamim came to Abdollah Jadan and pledged to eradicate the oppression and to take back the right of the oppressed from the oppressor I would attend. Why was it called the treaty of the gallants? The reason was because of this treaty the pledge is to get back the rights of the oppressed from the oppressors. The treaty existed in pre-Islamic period and the law giver of the Islamic religion (Shariah) had stipulated that if he was invited to the treaty he would accept the invitation.
The latter was an abstract of the reasons which necessitate the unity of Islamic Ummah and forbid discord and deceit among Muslims and non-Muslims who have accepted hospitality from Muslims and have consented to peaceful proximity to the law of Islam; because the path of Islam is vast and it has the required capacity to have them on board also. This is the point of view of Seyyed Jamal Aldin Assad Abadi pertaining to the unification and unity of the Islamic Ummah.